Defendant in Mallory Beach wrongful death lawsuit asks trial be moved to Beaufort Co.
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2019 Boat Crash Coverage
The crash of a Murdaugh family boat in 2019 killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach and started a chain of events that would remain in the news two years later. Here are the stories from that crash.
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This story first published Jan. 1, 2020.
At least one defendant and five witnesses in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the mother of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was killed in a boat crash near Parris Island in February, have asked that the civil trial be moved from Hampton County to Beaufort, according to newly filed court documents.
A motion to transfer venue from Hampton County to Beaufort County was filed Friday by attorneys representing Parkers 55, a convenience store in Ridgeland that the lawsuit accused of selling alcoholic beverages to Paul Murdaugh, the boat’s driver, on Feb. 23.
Moving the case, the motion said, “would promote convenience of the witnesses and ends of justice.”
All five witnesses whose affidavits were electronically filed on Friday worked at Beaufort Memorial Hospital the night of Feb. 23 and into the morning of Feb. 24, when the crash occurred. They all live in either Beaufort or Bluffton.
Their affidavits are almost identical requests that include the following statement: “Attending a trial in Hampton would be a hardship because I work the night shift and driving to Hampton County would be an inconvenience because I need sleep during the day so that I am alert and prepared for my shift which is from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.”
Calls to the lawyer representing Beach’s mother, Renee Beach, and to the lawyer representing Parkers 55 about the request to move the trial were not immediately returned Monday afternoon.
The lawsuit
Renee Beach originally filed the lawsuit on March 20 in Beaufort County, where the boat crash happened. The suit was later dismissed, according to court documents. On March 29, the current suit was filed in Hampton County.
Since the civil filing, 20-year-old Paul Murdaugh, of Hampton County, was charged in criminal court in April with three felony counts of boating under the influence in the fatal crash. He pleaded not guilty to those charges in May and was released on a $50,000 personal recognizance bond.
On Monday, representatives of the state’s attorney general’s office and the S.C. Department of Natural Resources — the lead investigating agency — said there were no updates to the criminal case. No court date is listed for Paul Murdaugh in the Beaufort County public index.
Since its initial filing, the wrongful death suit has changed.
In June, four defendants were dropped.
In addition to accusing Parkers 55 of selling alcoholic beverages to Paul Murdaugh before the boat crash, that lawsuit blames Paul Murdaugh’s father, Richard Alexander Murdaugh, and his older brother Richard Alexander Murdaugh Jr., for letting the 20-year-old use false identification to obtain the alcohol.
On June 14, Richard Alexander Murdaugh and his older son, Richard Alexander Murdaugh Jr., hired Charleston-based lawyers Amy Bower and John Tiller, who were both named to the 2019 list of South Carolina Super Lawyers, to represent them.
The crash and investigation
Beach, also of Hampton, was ejected from the 17-foot boat Paul Murdaugh is accused of driving when it crashed into a bridge around 2:20 a.m. in Archers Creek. Her body was found a week later in a marshy area about 5 miles from the crash.
The five surviving passengers in the boat, including Paul Murdaugh, were injured, according to police reports. Law enforcement officers at the scene also noted that all five appeared to be “grossly intoxicated.”
Columbia lawyers defense attorney and state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, as well as Jim Griffin, are representing Paul Murdaugh.
At the scene of the crash, law enforcement officers did not give Paul Murdaugh a sobriety test.
He was taken to Beaufort Memorial Hospital, where SCDNR officers say Randolph and Alexander Murdaugh blocked investigators from questioning him and another boater who had also been identified as a possible driver, agency officials later said.
The affidavits did not mention the Murdaughs’ possible conflicts of interest in Hampton County as a reason to change the trial’s location, but others involved in the case noted the familiarity of the family as reason to recuse themselves.
Three generations of Murdaughs have held the elected position of solicitor for the 14th Judicial Circuit, which serves Beaufort, Hampton, Jasper, Allendale and Colleton counties, since 1920. Randolph Murdaugh, who succeeded his father in the post, served from 1986 to 2006. He continues to work as a contractor prosecuting criminal cases for the office. His son, Richard Alexander Murdaugh, voluntarily assists.
The Murdaugh family’s prominence in the community has resulted in several officials stepping away from the case. Two judges have recused themselves from hearing the civil case.
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office recused itself from a criminal investigation into where the teens received or purchased alcohol on March 25. A “long-standing relationship with the Murdaugh family” was given as a reason.
A day after the crash, 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone asked South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson to reassign the case should charges be filed because three of the boaters are related to employees of Stone’s office.
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Defendant in Mallory Beach wrongful death lawsuit asks trial be moved to Beaufort Co.."
